Task-based Performance Task-based Performance and Task-based Instruction: and Task-based Instruction:

Research ContributionsResearch Contributions

JALT Task-based Learning SIGOsaka

May 2014

Peter SkehanSt. Mary's University, Twickenham

The Background The challenges instruction faces

Development and change Control and Performance

Traditional teaching Teachers, syllabuses, materials choose and

present language for development and change

Classroom activities 'lead to' control and performance

It didn't work especially well, at least in the U.K!

An earlier response

Communicative language teaching, where meaning and the need to communicate are fundamental

Language development arises out of the need to mean

Performance and control 'therefore' happen naturally, assisted by conversational feedback

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A response to this responseA response to this response

CLT now seems to have become TBLTCLT now seems to have become TBLT– TBLT is perhaps more psycholinguistic and SLA in orientation TBLT is perhaps more psycholinguistic and SLA in orientation

whereas CLT is more meaning basedwhereas CLT is more meaning based– TBLT perhaps connects more naturally with researchTBLT perhaps connects more naturally with research– TBLT comes in strong (there is only the task, and nothing but the TBLT comes in strong (there is only the task, and nothing but the

task) and weak (tasks are useful, perhaps piecemeal adjuncts) task) and weak (tasks are useful, perhaps piecemeal adjuncts) forms, and the strong form has to wrestle with issues of syllabusforms, and the strong form has to wrestle with issues of syllabus

But a central issue: Are tasks all you need?But a central issue: Are tasks all you need? NO!! because:NO!! because:• New language is an issueNew language is an issue• How control is developed can be complexHow control is developed can be complex• Form can easily be forgotten as communication Form can easily be forgotten as communication

dominatesdominates

So: Dump tasks?

Again, NO! Because: First, the ability to use language would

have problems (Language Use) Second, because tasks enable individually-

based learning They generate a need to mean. Then

something good needs to happen to respond to this need to mean

Tasks capitalise on salience and timeliness (Language development)

What will this talk do? Look at the evidence on tasks, on task

characteristics, on influences on performance Look at the conditions under which tasks are

done, the before, the during, and the after It will take a research perspective – and try to

ground claims in what research has found That means there will a lot left out! And I won't

say anything about syllabus or evaluation.

A researcher's digression: Measurement

Task researchers obsess about measuring performance, in particular areas

(Structural) Complexity Lexis Accuracy Fluency

New, more advanced language

New words, more advanced words

Control: avoiding error

Control: Real time communication

What do these dimensions mean?

These are performance areas, which are distinct from one another statistically

Yet there is a pedagogic sequence here: Slow, new language (structures and words), leading to difficult, attention-demanding control and avoidance of error, leading to fluent control and easy access to well established language

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Things (cognitive) task researchers Things (cognitive) task researchers look atlook at

Pre-task work: e.g. planning, earlier engagementPre-task work: e.g. planning, earlier engagement During task factors: During task factors:

– task difficultytask difficulty– task characteristics and task selection task characteristics and task selection

Robinson and resource directionRobinson and resource direction Skehan and Trade-off claimsSkehan and Trade-off claims NoM and recasting-promoting tasksNoM and recasting-promoting tasks

– task conditions (time pressure, surprise information)task conditions (time pressure, surprise information)

Post-task work: Post-task work: – e.g. post-task activities intended to influence (earlier) e.g. post-task activities intended to influence (earlier)

task performancetask performance– post-task 'exploitation' of salient languagepost-task 'exploitation' of salient language

Tasks and Task Choice

A note on Peter Robinson, Aoyama Gakuin The Cognition Hypothesis: Attention is not

limited Resource directing tasks, (time perspective,

no. of elements, reasoning demands) push for greater complexity and greater accuracy, for better feedback, and better development

Task complexity pushes language to respond to these pressures, free of attentional limitations

It can be the basis for syllabus design

I'd like to believe, but . . . .

The evidence (of jointly raised accuracy and complexity through task complexity) is not strong

I don't buy the theory of unlimited attention Nor do I understand how tasks are

analysed as being more or less complex So, . . . . .

My approach to tasks 1

Learners have limited attention, so tasks which are too complex stretch learners too much, and things might fall apart

Doing better in one area, complexity say, might lower performance elsewhere

Try and choose tasks of the right (intermediate) level of difficulty for your learners' proficiency level

Engage learners, but give them a reasonable chance to achieve complexity, accuracy, and fluency (supported by conditions)

My approach to tasks 2

Tasks can have selective influences on performance, raising, e.g. complexity or fluency

Choose tasks which draw upon research to achieve what you would like to achieve, pedagogically

If you want to engage new language, choose tasks to raise complexity

If you want to nurture control, choose tasks to raise accuracy and/or fluency

A Personal Task

In this task you have to talk about the ways life in Britain is different from your country. Talk to your partner and see how similar your ideas are about these differences.

These are some things you could talk about:

What things surprise you:

What things do you like? Dislike?

You could think about areas like:

Clothes Food and drink Pets

The way people behave Children Young people

Attitude to foreigners

Or any other area that you find interesting

Picnic

Assess the degree of structure in these pictures4 = very structured3 = structured2 = slightly structured1 = unstructured

Cobuild tasks (Randon order: Can you sequence them?)Task One: Find out in your group who works the longest hours each day.Task Two: Find the differences between two picturesTask Three: Find out the best house your partner has lived in.Task Four: Take a picture containing people. Ask Ss to write a story from the point of view of one of the people in the

picture. Other people have to guess "who they are".Task Five: Find out your partner's family tree.Task Six: In pairs, find out if you and your partner's paths will cross in the next week.Task Seven: Find out what your partner's morning routine is. Who is the quickest to leave the house in the morning?Task Eight: Find out, from your partner, the best time to phone them at home: usually/ tomorrow/ next Saturday/ next

SundayTask Nine: Find out, in group of four, who left school first.Task Ten: Find out what object both you and your partner have with you.Task Eleven: Tell your partner how to get to your home from the nearest bus stop. Your partner should draw a map

without you seeing it.Task Twelve: Find out if you have friends or relatives who:

- have the same job - work at the same place- have the same first name - have the same birthday

Task Thirteen: Peter, Mary, and John all went away last weekend. One of them went to Birmingham, one to Manchester, and one to London. One of them went to the theatre, one went to see a relative, and one went to buy a computer. Who did what?Clues: One of them went to London to visit her mother. John bought a computer, but not in Manchester.Can you explain how you did the puzzle?

Task Fourteen: Find out the types of school that your partner went to. Which did he like the most?

The dead cat story

Tasks and Selective Influence

Complexity Accuracy Fluency

Familiarity, Personal relevance √ √

Linking information√

Transformation of information √

High lexical demands

High task structure√ √ √

How far does this take us? If you have clear pedagogic goals, in terms

of complexity, accuracy, fluency, then: Task research can help you 'nudge'

performance in the way that you want This can be helpful, and can push learners

towards not forgetting form BUT!!!

This doesn't clarify difficulty It's no basis for sequencing either It's how you use tasks that is more important

Next we turn to conditions for using tasks

Preparation and pre-task activity: What could it be?

A pre-task task An orientation of some sort Native speakers doing the task as a model Non-native speakers doing the task Group preparation Constructing a splash diagram, say Planning time

So: What have researchers done?

They haven't looked at most of the things from the previous slide

They have studied planning. Extensively Repeatedly With planning defined almost always as

having ten minutes preparation time Mea culpa! But, I claim, it's been worth it!

A moment's thought

If people have planning time, what do you think will be the effects on each of: Complexity (structural, lexical) Accuracy Fluency

What will make these effects stronger? weaker?

Planning: General Findings Raised complexity: Large and consistent effect:

There's more subordination, a wider range of language, e.g. tenses, and more complex clauses

All effects are greater with more complex tasks The effects on lexical complexity are there, but

not so strong Increased fluency, (fewer pauses, faster speech,

greater length of run): Large and consistent effects

Sometimes, increased accuracy, and the effects are not large

So: Is planning good?

Absolutely. It is not harmful, and it is almost always good, so it can be recommended as a teaching option

Most (but not all) participants like it, and, slightly surprisingly, ten minutes is often welcomed, though maybe 8 would be better

Planning may enable learners to be themselves more in a task, by drawing on their own ideas

Complication 1: Rod Ellis and On-line Planning

Ellis distinguishes between pre-task planning and on-line planning

On-line planning is when relaxed speaking conditions enable people to plan for new speaking while they are speaking

Ellis argued (and provided some supportive evidence) that on-line planning (through monitoring) is what produces greater accuracy

Zhan Wang's Replication Wang worried about Ellis' operationalisation of on-

line planning (Ellis gave people more time than they used)

Using slowed video narratives she controlled for this, and standardised the time

She showed no effect for on-line planning under these more careful conditions

But: If on-line planning was preceded by strategic planning, then performance was much better – more accurate and complex

You need things to say (greater complexity) and time to say them (greater accuracy). Time alone isn't enough

Complication 2: Pang and Skehan

Almost all planning research is quantitative We, following Lourdes Ortega, decided to

take a different approach First we asked people what they had done

while they were planning Then we categorised the things they said Finally we related what they said to their

actual performances to see which planning behaviours make a difference

General Results Planning is good, but it is two edged –

sometimes people plan their way into trouble

Research-wise, planning always works, at a group level, but individually . . . . .

Pedagogically, there may be scope for teachers to work with students so that the planning they do is most effective – they use planning time to do the good things and avoid the bad things

Precepts for Planning Build your own structure Avoid trouble, and be realistic Have strategies for handling trouble when

it occurs Plan small and specific (vs. plan general) Avoid a focus on grammar, and

concentrate on ideas

These will almost certainly give you clearly more complex and fluent language, and probably more accurate, too.

Complication 3: Repetition

Maybe I can hear groans! But: We do repeat in our real lives, (even non-

politicians) and what we say, anyway, follows from previous life

So repetition is not as unnatural as all that Repetition doesn't have to be exact repetition It's worth asking students: do you like

repetition? (Even so, endless, predictable repetition

would be soul-destroying)

Zhan Wang (again)

Used an immediate repetition condition It produced spectacular results

Higher complexity Higher accuracy Higher fluency Curious, little change in vocabulary

So we have to take it seriously

Why does repetition work?

Planning leads to preparation of (possibly) a superficial sort: general word meaning or phonology is got ready. This can be limited, and only the surface.

Actually doing a task (prior to repetition) forces a deeper level than that: the word has to be used, the syntax around it organised (even if incorrectly), the detailed phonology attempted, collocations perhaps activated

Why does repetition work? (cont.)

This depth is much better remembered The repeated performance is enhanced much more

The repeated performance benefits from the first performance even when the first performance wasn't perfect – the wrestling with problems pays dividends later

All this avoids, somewhat, the dangers of planning

Some theory

Levelt talks about Conceptualisation, Formulation and Articulation in speech production

Formulation means retrieving lemmas (not words) in all their richness and then building syntax

Repetition prepares the ground for this Formulation much better than planning because it pushes for greater depth

Summary for Preparation

Pre-task planning is a good thing!! It 'naturally' raises complexity and fluency Accuracy is less natural, but it can be achieved

through (a) a combination of pre-task and on-line planning, (b) learners planning in 'good' ways

Pre-task and on-line planning work well together The potential for training planning and avoiding

its pitfalls is huge Repetition, as a form of preparation, is also very

very promising

The conditions under which a task is done

What decisions can teachers make about how to implement a task, whatever that task is?

Are there choices that can 'fine tune' a task, e.g. for difficulty? for performance balance?

Conditions: Time Pressure in Performance

Pressure (or lack of on-line planning opportunities), usually through introducing time limits. This lowers performance all round, including fluency sometimes! But this may be natural, as a preparation for

real-life It can also influence other conditions

unpredictably, e.g. swamping possible effects of planning

Conditions 2: Where can pressure come from?

Input dominance, quantity Similar to time pressure Important to use other influences, such as

planning, structured tasks BUT: input dominance reduces the impact of

these other variables SO: use with care!

Conditions 3: Interactive (vs. monologic) tasks

First, I mean not just interactive, but actually engaged in the interaction

Then, mostly, performance is enhanced, sometimes a lot

In addition, other influences, e.g. planning, post-task effects, are stronger

Why?

Interactive effects

Time while your interlocutor is speaking to pretend to listen, but in fact to plan

The immediacy of an interlocutor and the push to precision

The opportunity to steal good stuff, deliberately ('Ah, I'll have a bit of that!') or without knowing (alignment, and natural recycling)

(Sociocultural theory): to jointly reach places you wouldn't otherwise

All along, note the contrast with e.g. narrative

Finally!! Post-task Work

This comes in two forms Sneakiness and manipulating attention

during the actual task through pushing learners to anticipate what will come later

Building on language which emerges (or learners would have liked to use) in a task, through a focus on that salient language, but afterwards

The effects of anticipationThree research studies

Skehan and Foster 1997 Participants did tasks, but they were told that

after the task some pairs of students would be required to re-do the task publicly in front of the class and the teacher

We predicted that anticipating this possibility would change the focus of attention while the task was being done, to become more accurate

We were right, but only for one of three tasks, the decision making (interactive) task

Foster and Skehan 2013: Stubborn researchers!

In this study, learners were recorded during a task. Then, post-task, they had to transcribe some of their own performance. They knew this.

Same prediction: though more personal awareness of form, and greater accuracy

Result: Both tasks (narrative and decision-making) were significantly more accurate. The decision-making was also more complex

So, a better result, a better operationalisation Also, participants loved transcribing themselves!

Li (2014)

Christina Li liked our research, but thought more could be done

She also looked at: single vs. pair based transcribing 'simple' transcription vs. transcription with

revision Confirmed Foster and Skehan, plus: Pair based transcription raised complexity Revision increased accuracy even more,

but complexity suffered a little

Post-task anticipation activities: Reflection

It is good to show learners that getting the task done is not the only thing

What is attended to during the task can be influenced without compromising naturalness of communication

Form is brought into focus. Not just accuracy, but complexity too

You are also creating a record of the task which can be used later

Post-task Type 2: Building

Here we are dealing with actually teaching, work that only becomes possible after a task is done

Dick Schmidt talked about noticing, in input, and then Merrill Swain extended this to 'noticing the hole' in output. That's what I mean!

What is special about this approach?

The task has made some language salient, so this means that the language has emerged from the learners themselves

Probably different language will emerge for different learners

Not all that language may be timely, in relation to language development (cf. second language acquisition)

The teacher can make a decision about which language to exploit, to work on, to be explicit about if need be

Building: 2

Assumptions A task is done The task creates a 'need to mean': sometimes

this is straightforward (and performance ability is enhanced), and sometimes it brings the learner up against problems (new language is needed, old language needs reorganisation or repair)

There is some sort of record of the task performance (cellphone, memory, notes, creeping-around teacher)

How would it work? Actually, with any sort of focussed language

work: Consciousness-raising and implicit work Explanation, Extension, Reorganisation Explicit teaching Corpus work Practice activities even

The key issue is that the teacher has to know enough to improvise as needed, and to find relevant resources very quickly

For example: Asking questions

Pienemann has a scale of development for asking questions, where each new stage builds on the previous one

If a teacher, or students, notice difficulty with question formation, they could relate this to Pienemann's scale

The focus would come from the students, but the response could be guided by acquisition theory

For example: Conditionals

Again, it starts with problems which emerge in doing a task

Then, the teacher might select this for work This could be clarifying something that was

almost achieved Or it could be relating different conditional forms

to each other, to bring out their differences The 'crime' would be to notice an area of difficulty

in the task and then do nothing!

Reflections on research and task-based instruction

Especially with tasks themselves, it has its limits! What we have learned about tasks is

interesting, but unsystematic We only know about different features of

tasks and how they are somewhat predictable in their effects

This is good, but it doesn't yet solve syllabus or sequencing problems

Reflections (cont.)

Research into conditions is much more useful Results about planning are already

interesting There is lots of scope to do more research

Into fine-tuning planning Into training planning

The pre-task stage, more generally, looks interesting, to think of more broadly, and definitely to incorporate and research repetition

Conditions (cont.)

During task conditions are also interesting To understand what causes pressure, and

what its effect are To show the usefulness of interactivity

Post-task conditions are for me the most exciting aspect of all By trying to manipulate attention, e.g.

transcription By learning how to exploit what is made

salient by a task, and teach responsively

ReferencesEllis R. and Yuan F. (2005). The effect of careful within-task planning on oral and written task performance. In R.Ellis (Ed.).

Planning and Task Performance in a Second Language. (pp. 167-192). Amsterdam: John Benjamins

Foster P., & Skehan P. (2013), Anticipating a post-task activity: the effects on accuracy, complexity and fluency of L2 language performance, Canadian Modern Language Journal.

Li Q. (2014), Get it right in the end: The effects of post-task transcribing on learners' oral performance. In Skehan P. (Ed.), pp. 129-154.

Ortega L. (2005). What do learners plan? Learner-driven attention to form during pre-task planning. In R. Ellis (Ed.), Planning and task performance in a second language. (pp. 77-109). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Pang F. and Skehan P. (2014). Self-reported planning behaviour and second language performance in narrative retelling. In Skehan P. (Ed.). pp. 95-128.

Skehan P. (2014). (Ed.) Processing Perspectives on Task Performance, Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Skehan, P., & Foster, P. (1997). The influence of planning and post-task activities on accuracy and complexity in task based learning. Language Teaching Research, 1, 185-211.

Wang Z. (2014). On-line time pressure manipulations: L2 speaking performance under five types of planning and repetition conditions. In Skehan P. (2014). pp. 27-62.

Willis, J. (1996). A framework for task-based learning. Addison Wesley Longman Limited.

Thank You!